


What matters most

by staringatstars



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers for Season 2, officially not canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 06:13:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12953082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staringatstars/pseuds/staringatstars
Summary: Shoulders hunched, and in the moment that Andy dragged a shaking hand down his face, Marcus couldn’t help but think of how strikingly familiar the fear seemed, like that of a child left alone in the dark. “Olivia is going to kill me.”"Tomas?!”





	What matters most

**Author's Note:**

> It's a little silly, but I saw the preview and thought, 'How cool would it be if at some point Tomas gets the upper hand on the demon and since Andy doesn't immediately assert himself, accidentally takes the reins'?

He’s walked with death dogging his heels since he was a kid, until it became such a constant presence that the proximity was almost a comfort. Theirs was a dance that bordered on flirtation, so when the fingers crusted with dried blood curled around his throat and started to _dig_ , it didn’t come as too much of a shock. This could be his end – pressed up against a pine by a good man, a loving man, with sunken black eyes and an expression of void. If he survives this, there will be ugly purple bruises, mottled and concaved, but he knows this because he’s been in situations like this before and _survived_. 

From behind him, Rose beats on Andy’s back with fists powered by the entirety of her grief and that last desperate drop of hope that always seems to stick until the often gruesome end. With each resounding blow, she screams for him to wake up, for the children, for their future, and for her. Because if he doesn’t let go of Nikki’s shadow, if he doesn’t wake up, if he doesn’t fight… than he will lose _everything_.

And, suddenly, the weathered hands crushing the former priest’s larynx relax, pulling back with a dazedly confused and lightly accented, “Marcus?” 

Curling forward, Marcus coughed, the sound harsh and grating as oxygen rushed to fill his lungs, allowing Andy to put distance between them as his brow began to furrow and his gaze fell to his hands, realization dawning in the lightened shade of his eyes. With a touch of wonder that seemed strikingly incongruous given the situation, he traced the lines of his palms as though mapping a new terrain, before moving onto his wrists and up his arms. 

Shoulders hunched, and in the moment that Andy dragged a shaking hand down his face, Marcus couldn’t help but think of how strikingly familiar the fear seemed, like that of a child left alone in the dark. “Olivia is going to kill me.”

_"Tomas?!”_

Marcus wanted to kick himself. It could easily be the demon speaking with his voice, just another trick meant to throw him off guard, and yet the sheepish shrug, the way he couldn’t seem to look at him head on, the crooked grin that was less mirth and more spasm, “Has this ever happened before?”

But if this was a demon wearing his partner’s mannerisms like a mask at a masquerade party, its impression was eerily, frighteningly accurate. It was hitting all the right notes, some unholy mix of bemusement, dry humor, and creeping hysteria. 

“Has an exorcist ever accidentally possessed their charge before?” Marcus said, approaching him slowly. “God, I bloody hope not.”

A chuckle bubbled past Andy’s cracked lips, wet and distorted. “Well, it’s no Mexican Pope, but I suppose it’s something. 

Rose, who’d been standing silently as she struggled to wrap her head around what had happened to Andy, suddenly marched forward, “Was that supposed to be a joke?” Andy winced, visibly flinching away from her. Seeing that, it was all Marcus could do not to order her to keep her distance. She had every right to be worried, Andy’s soul was still in danger and his body was currently being puppeted by one of the men tasked to save him, but neither of them knew what horrors Tomas had experienced while facing the demon on its own turf, alone. Men with more experience and clout had fallen to madness from less. “If you don’t start taking this seriously, the demon is going to be the least of your worries.” 

Andy straightened from his hunched position to regard her with an almost dazed expression, one bordering on the edge of awe. Then he glanced up at Marcus, stating matter-of-factly, “I’m a dead man.” 

It really wasn’t funny, all things considered. People were dead, lives were ruined, so whether the unexpected frankness did or didn’t startle an amused snort out of him was just going to have to remain another secret for the island to keep. Stepping forward with his palms outstretched placatingly, though for whose sake he was no longer sure, Marcus asked wearily, “Is the demon still in there with you?”

“Yes, it is…” And just like Tomas, he paused, choosing his words with great care, “hiding Andy from me.” The dilation in his pupils had receded to the point where Marcus could see the stark fear in the whites of his eyes. “If I go back in to search for him, it will manifest again. It will try to hurt you, both of you, and I cannot guarantee that I can stop it a second time.” 

Resting a palm against the man’s cheek, Marcus asked softly, “Do you trust me, Tomas?”

And though he stiffened at the contact, Andy’s mouth slowly curved into a wry smile, “More than I trust myself.” 

Marcus nodded. “Then let me help you.” He clasped Andy’s hands between his own, ignoring the cold that burned through him at the touch. A little pain was nothing compared to what was at stake. With that in mind, he hesitated only a moment before reaching out to Rose, as well. She may not have known the prayer by heart as they did, but she knew Andy, and so to both of them, Marcus plainly beseeched, “Pray with me.

As they repeated the words together, Tomas with growing confidence as his foreign tongue shaped the movements, he began to feel himself sink into the shadows flitting behind Andy’s eyes, and knew that he was returning to the home with the children buried in the garden, to the father too terrified of loss to understand what he was losing, but he also knew why, and it wasn’t to win or anything so glorified as that. 

It was to save an innocent. A family. 

Because at the end of the day, that was all that mattered.


End file.
